Editor's Forum
If you've called our offices recently, you may have noticed that the phones are being answered "R&D Publications, a Miller Freeman company." Effective June 1, Donna and I sold the company to Miller Freeman, Inc. Depending upon how closely you follow publishing, you may or may not recognize Miller Freeman (MFI) as a major publisher of specialized technical magazines. Before this purchase, the stable of MFI technical titles already included Doctor Dobb's Journal, Software Development, UNIX Review, Microsoft Systems Journal, and OS/2 Developer, among others. Miller-Freeman, in turn, is a subsidiary of United Newspapers plc. While this is certainly a significant event in my life and the lives of all those working here, it will probably be a non-event for Sys Admin readers. Sys Admin will continue with the same editorial staff, the same columnists, and the same mission: to print practical, fully detailed solutions to real-world UNIX system administration problems. Hopefully, our readers will only see one significant change: more and better Sys Admin information. For one thing, Sys Admin will be my only responsibility--a change that will let me contribute more than I have in the recent past. (To give credit where credit is due, Martha Masinton has been "virtual" editor, with strong support from our consulting editor, Larry Reznick, for some time--both have done an excellent job.) More importantly, though, MFI has access to far more capital resources than our small company could muster by itself. With more editorial resources and more capital resources, we should be better able to propose and produce new Sys Admin products. Speaking of new products, we have just recently sent two new volumes in the Reference Reprint Series to press: Performance (Vol. 3) and Security (Vol. 4). These join the earlier two releases: Network Access (Vol. 1) and Backup (Vol. 2). If you are new to Sys Admin, these booklets are a great way to "catch up" on the best articles out of past issues. You can find additional information about the Reference Reprint Series on page 89 in this issue.
Sincerely yours,
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